World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Announced

Post by Eorl @ 05:43am 09/11/13 | 58 Comments

Blizzard's return to its annual Blizzcon 2013 ceremony has begun, and with it comes the announcement of a brand-new expansion for their popular MMO World of Warcraft.

Across Draenor's savage jungles and battle-scarred plains, Azeroth's heroes will engage in a mythic conflict involving mystical draenei champions and mighty orc clans, and cross axes with the likes of Grommash Hellscream, Blackhand, and Ner’zhul at the height of their primal power. Players will need to scour this unwelcoming land in search of allies to help build a desperate defense against the old Horde’s formidable engine of conquest—or else watch their own world’s bloody, war-torn history repeat itself.

Titled Warlords of Draenor, the next expansion will take players back to the land of Draenor, before the events of The Burning Crusade and Outlands. While no new class or race was announced for this latest expansion - a change of pace from the previous four expansions - Blizzard revealed the level cap will raise to 100. To help new and returning players answer the call to arms on Draenor, the expansion will enable anyone to instantly boost one character to level 90, including a newly created character, quickly getting them up to speed and ready to enjoy the latest content with their friends.

The new expansion will also bring along Garrisons, an expandable, customizable stronghold that will serve as each player’s personal base of operations throughout the course of the expansion. Many longtime fans, myself included, have been long awaiting the day for Blizzard to offer up player housing and this seems to be exactly it.

Warlords of Draenor will also introduce fully revamped player character models and animations for many of World of Warcraft’s existing playable races , bringing the orcs, humans, and several other longtime residents of Azeroth up to the visual standards of newer races while still maintaining their iconic style and identity.

Along with these new features, World of Warcraft players will enjoy a wide array of new content on their way to the new level cap of 100, including new Zones, Dungeons, Raids, Scenarios, Battlegrounds, and more. Warlords of Draenor will also introduce questing improvements designed to encourage exploration and add unpredictability to players’ ongoing adventures.

“Warlords of Draenor gives players a chance to take a commanding role in one of the Warcraft series’ most crucial conflicts,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “This expansion also includes features that make it easy for anyone to jump right into the action, whether they’ve played WoW at some point in the past or are just setting foot in Azeroth for the first time.”

Check it out in action below and we'll have more as Blizzcon continues throughout the weekend!

world of warcraft warlords of draenor burning crusade old school

Latest Comments

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Khel
Posted 08:42am 09/11/13

Was a bit meh at first when they announced it, but watching the panels now where they're filling in the details and its starting to sound rather cool. The garrison stuff sounds awesome

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Reverend Evil�
Posted 09:27am 09/11/13

The WoW lore panel is just about to start in a couple of minutes if you guys have the virtual ticket. Should be interesting.

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Eorl
Posted 09:42am 09/11/13

I'm coming back. After three years I'm actually interested again. This is what I wanted, revamping features of the old, focusing on what made WoW what it is today and finally player housing. They have pretty much taken what WildStar was planning to do with player housing and put it into WoW so really excited for that.

Never thought I'd be coming back...RAF account anyone?

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Thundercracker
Posted 10:20am 09/11/13

One free level 90 character is the best idea IMO. So many people will jump at that.

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Khel
Posted 10:42am 09/11/13

Yeah, it sounds like they're trying to bring a lot of the classic Warcraft feel back into WoW, but using a lot of old Warcraft 2 villains/heroes and even the garrison building feels very much like they're trying to give it the Warcraft base building feel.

RAF is disabled atm Eorl cos they're reworking it, I'll fire you one off when it comes back up when/if you're keen.

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Eorl
Posted 11:00am 09/11/13

Oh sweet, that or a scroll of resurrection is fine, I have a number of 85 guys ready to roll.

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TicMan
Posted 02:01pm 09/11/13

I always get suckered back to WoW after a new expansion no matter how much I hate it :(

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Deviouz
Posted 02:32pm 09/11/13

For me TBC was the peak expansion, socially, content wise and just plain fun, this kind of recaptures that feel, so I might jump back in!

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Pandaemonean
Posted 03:04pm 09/11/13

World of Warcraft is out dated petty crap over-run with autism.

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nings
Posted 03:17pm 09/11/13

Socially awkward shut-ins with o.c.d. can now rejoice.

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fpot
Posted 03:19pm 09/11/13

heh yeah, those stupid nerds and their video games! I'll show them how nerdy they are with my comments on an internet gaming forum!

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nings
Posted 03:30pm 09/11/13

damn video games, ruination of society

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Eorl
Posted 04:11pm 09/11/13

Dev that's what I'm getting from this, especially with how Metzen introduced the expansion. It almost feels like a visit back to WarCraft 2.

Also, item squish was just confirmed. Heck yeah.

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TicMan
Posted 05:08pm 09/11/13

F*****g f***.. I'll be back on WoW now. Anyone else Proudmoore Horde?

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WirlWind
Posted 05:36pm 09/11/13

Oh god, the item squis**

Gonna feel weird doing sub 10,000 dps again

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BladeRunner
Posted 06:52pm 09/11/13

I for one will not be participating in this blizzard money making scheme, lol.

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RuleofBooKz
Posted 07:01pm 09/11/13

I like the warcraft games from the 1st one right up to the 3rd, that funny thing units say if u click them enuf times never gets old, but ive never played WoW. is it any good?

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Jayman
Posted 07:12pm 09/11/13

Looking forward to that always on PvP zone. This expac was sorely missing something like that.

Bringing Flex raiding as the standard for everything but the top level of raiding is a winner.

I like that people serious about arena don't have to worry about focusing on gear at all, and can just all play equal gear from vendors.

Moving BoA's and vanity items out of bags and into an account wide system was long overdue as well.

Solid changes all round. I liked what I saw.

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Mosfx
Posted 07:20pm 09/11/13

I enjoyed the social aspect of WoW and just being able to jump on for an hour or two and just do some PVP but my Wife gets the s*** when I play this game so I gave up on it, everytime there is an expac I get the urge to play it just to experiance the lore but I didn't even finish MOP level 87 shaman and I stopped just got bored.

I'll give this a miss I am hooked on Hearthstone and hoping I get a beta invite into Heroes of the Storm.

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Superform
Posted 09:40pm 09/11/13

so if i have a vanilla 60 toon and account how many expansions do i need to buy to get back into the game

last time i had a look it was 3 or some s***

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Reverend Evil�
Posted 09:47pm 09/11/13

I think it costs $20 for vanilla thru to Cata as a bundle and then $40 for Pandaland.

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ph33x
Posted 09:47pm 09/11/13

70 Burning Crusade
80 Wrath of Lich King
85 Cataclysm
90 Mists of Pandaria

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Khel
Posted 09:50pm 09/11/13

Yeah, the base package includes everything up to MoP now, so your account should automatically be upgraded to have Cata, then you'd just have to buy MoP.

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Eorl
Posted 10:13pm 10/11/13

I'm pretty sure just buying MoP gets you the full game including expansions. Noticed they are still selling deluxe editions so going to grab that this week, need me an exclusive mount.

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Reverend Evil�
Posted 10:16pm 10/11/13

Anyone else excited about the movie? I was watching the video of the panel event just before and it sounds like it's gonna be damn cool. As long as they don't f*** it up. lol

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ravn0s
Posted 10:47pm 10/11/13

movie info:

Duncan Jones has played the Warcraft games, World of Warcraft, and even Lost Vikings. He originally played Ultima Online.
The Special Effects supervisor plays World of Warcraft and is level 90.
Marketing hasn't started yet, so there isn't a ton to reveal yet.
Jones liked the script, but it was very Alliance centric. He thought it would be better to make it about both sides and the original Warcraft.
Jones turned down other films because he was really passionate about working on Warcraft.
While working on Golden Compass, the special effects supervisor got up at 2 in the morning to do runs with his guild.
Real actors will be used for the Orcs.
Avatar meets Game of Thrones as far as complexity of visual effects with live action, advanced special effects, and motion capture on set.
There is a lot of Warcraft lore, so they had to pick a certain amount of the lore for this movie.
The team has to figure out which characters to shine the spotlight on.
There is concept art for Draenor, Dalaran, Ironforge, Stormwind
Making environments for the game has a lot of restrictions, but in the movie you can expand on the environment with less restriction and make it more grand / cinematic.
Many locations in the film will be on built sets, like the Lion's Pride Inn.
The most famous character in World of Warcraft is the actual world itself.
Wardrobe and Costume design is being done by someone that has worked on Avatar.
The team is looking at details as small as the bark on the trees in Elwynn Forest.
People who don't know the world and people who are hardcore players will both enjoy the film.
The story is Orcs vs Humans. Lothar and Durotan.
Durotan represents the highest ideal of the Orcs. He believes in his people and his future.
Both want to do the right thing for their people.
The games weren't the best way to tell this story originally, so the movie will be a great opportunity to tell the story in an even more epic way.
Someone has to win and someone has to lose, but everyone loses at least a little bit.
The style of this war movie will be similar to Gladiator, gritty.
WoW doesn't have scabbards, so where swords will go has to be worked out.
There are no plans for an art book for the movie, but it is a possibility.
Lots of the cast has been picked out.
The first movie has to be done right, then they can think about doing more.
The majority of the movie takes place in the Eastern Kingdoms.
The lore of this time doesn't have many female characters, but the producers are pushing for including some female characters.
We will see a preview sometime next year, maybe at Blizzcon.
Metzen would like to do a TV series one day. When they originally decided to do a movie, Game of Thrones didn't exist on TV yet, so most similar stories were told in movies. If everything goes well, maybe a studio will want to do a TV show.
The Lord of the Rings movies inspired Jones to want to do this movie. He wants to match or beat them at making an awesome movie.
Someone is working on the Orcish language for the movie.
The movie will be PG13, but the PG13 rating is shifting. Batman movies are PG13.

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Eorl
Posted 01:16am 11/11/13

Hmm, seems like they won't be adding anymore new content until the expansion is about to drop. Kind of sucks, especially when an expansion takes a good 6-8 months to drop and there are already some rather interesting MMOs on the horizon including Elder Scrolls and WildStar.

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Reverend Evil�
Posted 02:07am 11/11/13

Yes. Have fun running SoO for the next year. I'm hoping the xpac gets released at least May/June.

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kappa
Posted 10:55am 11/11/13

Yeah my account got a free upgrade to cata so I jumped on for the first time in ages and hit 85.

But now I'm waiting for a cheap copy of MoP before I continue on.

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Enska
Posted 12:09pm 11/11/13

looking forward to the flick, so much potential for a seriously good movie in the right hands. I'm glad they're focusing on original Warcraft lore instead of trying to base it around some dude who goes around soloing Onyxia or some s***.

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ph33x
Posted 12:11pm 11/11/13

We have 2 weeks off the raids but when we get back into it we'll be looking for a ranged DPS or two.

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Hogfather
Posted 03:59pm 12/11/13

Anyone got a scroll of resurrection laying around? Figure I may as well finish Pandarium.

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kappa
Posted 04:14pm 12/11/13

What's your details hoggy?

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arkter
Posted 04:17pm 12/11/13

base it around some dude who goes around soloing Onyxia or some s***.

lol'd heavily. That is a movie I could get behind.

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Hogfather
Posted 04:24pm 12/11/13

What's your details hoggy?

Umm I'm Anthor on Proudmoore ( http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/proudmoore/Anthor/ ) , if you need more details PM me.

I don't THINK my account has been revived since the March 2012 cut off where you only get one time per license, but its possible :(

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kappa
Posted 04:26pm 12/11/13

Ok sent anyway

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Hogfather
Posted 04:30pm 12/11/13

Hmm nothing came through yet, will give it a bit.

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kappa
Posted 04:34pm 12/11/13

"Scroll Complete! Your invitation request has been submitted. Your invitation is now queued for validation.

Scroll invitations are validated in hourly batches, so your friend should receive your invite shortly."

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Hogfather
Posted 04:37pm 12/11/13

Ahh ok cool, wonder why they validate them.

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Khel
Posted 05:49pm 12/11/13

Saurfang - Horde, make it happen. Unofficial qgl wow server.

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Hogfather
Posted 05:53pm 12/11/13

Still haven't got my invite.

All my s*** is alliance Proudmoore, getting an 80+ to Saurfang would be exxy! :(

Edit: Still no scoll wtf

Edit Edit: Where is Rev, he must be spooging with all this wow'ing

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kappa
Posted 05:59pm 12/11/13

:(

Only other way is with name and battle net email.

But yeah nfi what the deal is :S I've never sent one before so I don't know how long they usually take.

Check this page?

https://www.battle.net/account/management/wow/services/sor-received-invitations.html

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Hogfather
Posted 06:04pm 12/11/13

Found my subscription history, looks like I'm f***ed and have to pay, used a scroll in April 2012 (scrolls used after March 2012 mean you can never ever use another one because fascist c****)

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Eorl
Posted 06:07pm 12/11/13

Saurfang - Horde, make it happen. Unofficial qgl wow server.

Ugh. I need ot pony up and pay $50 for two character transfers off a seperate account of mine, but both are going directly to Frostmourne.

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Hogfather
Posted 06:10pm 12/11/13

lol guess they dont want my money

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Mosfx
Posted 06:28pm 12/11/13

to make them valid?

if it doesn't work I have one too laying around despite my previous post I am playing it again just early morning and late nights when I'm not doing things with the Wife.

Mosfxx on Caelestrasz
Meddek on Jubei'Thos* Primary

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Mosfx
Posted 06:29pm 12/11/13

You need to go to 'Settings' at the top and add a payment option

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ph33x
Posted 06:40pm 12/11/13

*obsolete.

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Mosfx
Posted 09:52am 13/11/13

Well against my better judgement I shifted my Horde Priest to Saurfang so let the Ausgamers server begin!

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glynd
Posted 11:01am 13/11/13

I just came crawling back incidentally, changed server by Saurfang before reading this. Blizzard ... always making me chase the dragon.

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Khel
Posted 01:30pm 13/11/13

Hit me up if you need a guild or somewhere to hang out / level up / do s***

Khel#1892

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glynd
Posted 07:56pm 15/11/13

Hit me up if you need a guild or somewhere to hang out / level up / do s***Khel#1892

send a request mate ... awesome if you could hook us up with a guild invite if there's a QGL/AG guild going. glynd#1619

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Lynx
Posted 08:33pm 15/11/13

10 Alliance characters on Blackrock :(

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Thundercracker
Posted 08:55am 16/11/13

I know this goes against everything but I reckon cross realm dungeons should let you group between alliance and horde mainly because half of my friends are alliance and half are horde.

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Khel
Posted 09:46pm 16/11/13

Yeah, that'd actually be pretty awesome from a gameplay perspective, but I spose it'd be a hard sell in a game which is meant to be about two factions that hate each other :( You could do that stuff in The Secret World though, run raids and instances with people from different factions, and it was sweet.

awesome if you could hook us up with a guild invite if there's a QGL/AG guild going

Its guess its not technically an official QGL/AG guild, but theres a few of us there now, me and ticcles and hoggy and Mosfx and Zapo I think, along with a bunch of people who aren't QGL/AG people. I'll toss you an invite next time I see you around

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Thundercracker
Posted 12:32pm 17/11/13

I'm currently on Blackrock horde (OG Aussie pvp server) in a small but friendly guild. Mainly focusing on getting my welfare epics from the timeless isles. My Main is my warrior which I plan to tank on.

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kappa
Posted 01:07pm 17/11/13

I transferred mine off blackrock alliance when i logged on and found it was a ghost town. Nothing like vanilla :(

Now on Frostmourne and it's packed.

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Thundercracker
Posted 01:09pm 17/11/13

Yeah Blackrock is really horde heavy. I also suspect the Aussie population have moved away to oceanic realms.

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